Here's a Private Message I just received from Keith Painter, a worthy new pilgrim on the journey that is The Golfing Machine. Keith visited me for two days last winter and has since chronicled in several posts his progress -- warts and all -- toward building a sound, efficient Golf Stroke. As a prerequisite to this post, you might want to visit -- or revisit -- the video of our closing minutes together. You'll find it in The Gallery -- Compression At Twilight. As part of Keith's training, Ted Fort and I did a video analysis of his Stroke and offered to monitor his progress via email. Here begins our tale...
Originally Posted by krpainter
Yoda,
I just send the following message to Ted, but wanted to update you as well. Back in August I went through a period of wanting to see some more improvment in my scores (leveled out after dropping earlier in the season). I filmed myself and sent a couple of clips to Ted to see if he could comment on some things to work on. He did and specifically mentioned straightening of my right knee and lack of a finish swivel (get rid of dreaded chicken wings). I worked on these and then something just clicked...here is what I sent him with the update:
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Ted, haven't broken 70 yet, but wanted to send you another update:
Went out last Friday and discovered that the longer drives are not a fluke (3rd time out since Labor Day weekend and each time I am consistenly hitting drives over 250 yards -- just boggles my mind considering that I could rarely hit a drive over 200 yards just 2 weeks ago). I had a first too -- my first 300 yard drive (over 340 to be exact!)...it was on a down hill par 4 that has a creek that borders the green and I found the ball right before the creek.
The problem is that its not just the drives...everything is longer which causes problems picking clubs (would have broken my all time best score but I kept flying greens with irons). I hit a great 5 iron over 200 yards on a hole which amazed me...
The best thing was I was tied with my buddy on match and stroke play going to the 18th hole (par 5). We do $1 bet for each and I am always paying him $2 (he traditionally beats me by 5-10 strokes for stroke play). I had a great drive on the left side of the fairway that left me about 250 out. The feeds downhill from left to right with the right side of the green bordering a small pond/lake. I wasn't going to go for it, but decided since we were tied and my buddy hit a good layup for a 2nd shot, why not... I never (and I mean never) hit a 3 wood (just put it back into my bag a little while ago). I just set up the same and didn't think about anything except keeping the flex in my right knee and hit a perfect shot that fed down to the hole. When we got up there the ball was by the fringe in front of the green and I did a "eagle chip" for the first time. I ended up collecting the $2 and it felt good.
All I think about now is keeping flex in right knee (great tip) and then letting it go...don't worry about positions, etc. Not sure if I'm swinging or hitting but I am enjoying golf now! If I figure out my new distances I think I'll start scoring really well...all thanks to you and Yoda.
Keith
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BTW, I want to try and schedule a Friday/Saturday in early December or January/February to come see you and Ted. I would love to do it earlier, but I coach my daughter's soccer team and they have games and tournaments up to right before Thanksgiving.
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